Close
News and musings from the UCL Culture team
By Will J Richard, on 23 June 2017
Hello e-folks! Will Richard here bringing you another specimen of the week. A tall story with a lot of heart. That’s right folks it’s the…
Wild giraffes in Niger. Image by Clémence Delmas via Wikimedia Commons; CC BY 3.0
By Dean W Veall, on 21 April 2017
Pipistrelle sp. LDUCZ-Z617
Hello Specimen of the Week fans, Dean Veall here. This week I have chosen a specimen that requires some very delicate handling as it’s a tiddler. The specimen is beautifully delicate and I would say demonstrates expert skills in preparation. This week’s Specimen of the Week is…
By Will J Richard, on 31 March 2017
Hello internet-folk. Will Richard here blogging a blog again. And for this blog I’ve chosen a specimen that nobody bothers with. We’ve got loads and they’re not exactly hard to find: flat-nosed, famously greedy and surprisingly intelligent it’s the…
LDUCZ-Z1089 Domestic pig skull
By Jack Ashby, on 17 March 2017
Eastern quoll. LDUCZ-Z2307
Mongooses, ferrets, shrews, meerkats, otters, weasels and cats: These are animals that most people will be familiar with.
Planigales, ningauis, kalutas, dunnarts, mulgaras and quolls: Not so much.
Despite all being small mammals, strangely named, absurdly cute (the second set even more so than the first), objectively interesting in many ecological, behavioural and evolutionary ways, there seems to be a difference in the level of attention between these groups of animal. The latter are all Australian marsupials, and for undoubtedly complicated political, colonial and egotistical reasons embedded in the western psyche, they don’t get their fair share of the limelight*. This week’s Specimen of the Week is a tiny step in addressing that, with…
By zcqsrti, on 27 January 2017
In a way the shelves are an encased tomb, shut and sealed away until periodically exhumed of their contents. Eddies scatter of rime-like dust now stirred as a looming hand reaches silently into the dark. Once sleeping, now disturbed, a lingering spectre awakens and begins its reanimated shamblings anew.
We have a spirit in our midst. Not just the liquid kind either, or even a trick of the light for that matter, but a pure dead spectre in the flesh…
Preserved tarsier (Tarsius sp.) at the Grant Museum of Zoology. LDUCZ-Z1542
By Will J Richard, on 4 November 2016
Hello e-people. Will Richard here and it’s specimen of the week time again. And this week I’ve gone for a chubby-cheeked favourite. There are about 400,000 of these charming little creatures kept as pets in the UK alone. That’s right it’s the…
LDUCZ-Z713 golden hamster skeleton
By ucwepwv, on 12 August 2016
Happy Friday everyone! This week I’ve chosen a specimen of the week that has been used as an icon for the Grant Museum of Zoology and which represents one of the weirder looking critters with which we share the world – a species so strange that it grows its teeth through its face and on the rare occasion, back into its own head. That’s right, it’s the…
LDUCZ-Z111 Babyrousa babyrussa skull
By zcbtgwg, on 22 July 2016
Hello all! George Phillips here, presenting my first specimen of the week: the galago. The specimen you see before you is Demidoff’s dwarf galago (Galago demidoff), an omnivorous, nocturnal bushbaby native to the rainforests and wooded savanna of Central and West Africa. With a hearty abdominal incision for better internal distribution of preservative fluid, this handsome fellow has likely been a valuable addition to the teaching collection at the Grant Museum over the years. On many occasions I’ve witnessed visitors’ delight at this specimen’s majestic stance and slightly alien features.
Demidoff’s dwarf galago (Galago demidoff) LDUCZ-Z2899
Weighing as little as 46 grams with a body length of just ten centimeters, Demidoff’s dwarf galago is the smallest primate found in Africa. (more…)
By ucwepwv, on 8 July 2016
Happy Friday, Grant aficionados! Welcome back to the high-point of the week, where Saturday is almost within reach and we get to share a gem from the collection for your delectation.
This week that particular gem is the…
LDUCZ-Z445 Sapajus sp.
By tcrnrh1, on 10 June 2016
The Grant Museum is a haven for the unexpected. As is often the case with the collection (at least, for me anyway), just when you’re expecting to see an animal that you feel fairly au fait with… the museum presents you with specimens that are: dissected, bisected, exploded, stained, crammed with others in a jar or injected with alizarin. So as a case in point, here is the rinsed skeleton of a dolphin foetus.
LDUCZ-Z3092 – Dolphin Foetus
